..We therefore provide the first direct evidence that community music programs enhance the neural processing of speech in at-risk children, suggesting that active and repeated engagement with sound changes neural function. ..

..This sets the stage for further examination of how music programs may be used to support the development of basic skills underlying learning and literacy, particularly in at-risk populations which may benefit the most. ..

Musical experience and the aging auditory system: implications for cognitive abilities and hearing speech in noise

..These findings of biological plasticity, in a variety of subject populations, relate to attention and auditory memory, and represent an integrated auditory system influenced by both sensation and cognition...

..We hypothesized that, in combination with auditory cognitive abilities, neural sensitivity to regularities in ongoing speech provides a common biological mechanism underlying the development of music and reading abilities...

Biological changes in auditory function following training in children with autism spectrum disorders

..Neural enhancements were strongly correlated with years of musical training, and our findings, therefore, underscore the role that long-term experience with music plays in shaping auditory sensory encoding...

..Because it is both passively elicited and malleable, the speech-evoked brainstem response may serve as a clinical tool to assess auditory processing as well as the effects of auditory training in the ASD population...

..These results are consistent with the view that the neural processes underlying phonological awareness and speech-in-noise perception depend on reciprocal interactions between cognitive and perceptual processes...

..Utilizing an array of measurements to assess subcortical modulation, we have found that emotion does not substantially alter brainstem alter although there is a subtle effect of background noise suppression in both emotional conditions...

Research Grants1

..Furthermore, the results will delineate the role of neural synchrony in speech perception, and suggest training protocols that may improve speech perception in individuals with impaired hearing mechanisms. ..